Be Enough
by Luminous Lu
Summary: This is the start of the Redemption universe. Montgomery's funeral and its aftermath — Kate doesn't get shot. Two-shot.
1. One

I want to darken in the skies

Open the floodgates up

I want to change my mind

I want to be enough

I want the water in my eyes

I want to cry until the end of time.

_— Let the Rain by Sara Bareilles_

* * *

><p>It's bright, at the cemetery. Too bright, too much light on a day that is supposed to be dark, to have the air heavy with the gravity of death. There are birds chirping somewhere and the breeze is soft against the branches of the trees, the rustling creating an almost musical environment. It's not right.<p>

It's all wrong — the freshness of the day, the sun shining brightly overhead and making it a good day for so many people, forcing so many smiles out of so many faces. It's not how it should be. It should be black. It should be raining, the sky was supposed to be painted in a shade of grey so dark that it would seem like night. The day shouldn't be this beautiful.

An airplane circles the air space above them and when Kate Beckett looks up, she almost expects to see the flying colors of America tracing lines in the sky. Roy Montgomery surely deserved it.

She's in her uniform; they all are, her colleagues. Castle is the exception, standing in his black suit, black tie and shirt, standing out like he does everywhere else. But somehow, in the middle of all these police officers and despite the stark difference in attire, he feels like one of them. Alike in his difference. His face is dark like all of theirs.

There's a sense of something that Kate identifies as blame in the way people look at her. Of course, as soon as the news of the Captain's death reached the precinct, the theory that it was somehow connected to her mother's murder roamed around as well. No one talks about it, but she can see it — in the way Karpowski's eyes shy away when they meet her own, in the soft smile that graces Gonzales' face, a mid way between condolences and the cruel pointing of a finger.

Maybe she's just imagining it all. Maybe it's her head working overtime, maybe it's her own guilt making her feel like everyone is staring, everyone is placing blame. Maybe it's the sun, so high up there, mocking them all.

She stands alone and she can feel the wind crawling through her fingers, making its way across her skin. She moves one finger, then two. She's alive, and she realizes that for her to be able to do that, her Captain had to die. For her to be able to stand there, on that breezy May afternoon, feeling the wind run across her hands and her face and the entirety of her body, a man she treasured as a father had to give his life.

They all stand back as the caskett is lowered to the ground — the only audible sounds are the soft thuds as it hits the side of the carefully excavated hole, and Evelyn's sobs. Kate's eyes move up to find the woman and she sees her being held up by her oldest daughter, the teenager, her body breaking in half, forcing her to bend forward as she tries to hold back the cries of sorrow. It's a heart wrenching sight, she knows it. She's been on that side of the grave.

It's the youngest girl, however, that gets to her. The sight of the young girl makes her want to curl up and cry like Evelyn's doing. She's standing there, holding the flag her mother dropped moments ago to her chest like the symbol of pride that it is; she's not sobbing, not crying hysterically like a ten year old should. She's just standing there, her eyes on the casket, the tears flowing freely down her small, peaceful face. She's the picture of a quiet sorrow, of a brokenness so deep that it will probably change her life forever. Kate should know. She was that girl, once. No matter how much older she was, the nine years she had on the small child in front of her. It was the same thing, twelve years apart.

A parent gone. A child taking it so stoically, so strongly, that only the people who know better can see the cracks under her childish, tender skin.

It's what gets to Kate — and she finally feels the tears leaving her eyes and tracing the shape of her cheekbones, of her jaw, falling all the way to her neck before they disappear. She won't allow that stray sob to escape her chest — she knows better than that, has more self control than that. But she can stand there and allow the tears to fall, just keep her eyes open and on the little girl who looks up suddenly and meets the detective's eyes.

In that moment, they both know they're not alone.

* * *

><p>Everyone's left.<p>

Someone — a family member, Roy's brother? — took Evelyn and the girls home for the funeral reception and the rest of the people followed them, their silent faces and bodies teaching the day about the gravity of the moment. It's still slightly offensive, she considers with a bitter laugh. Great. Now she's offended by the weather.

She sits on a bench nearby as she watches the men work on the grave — fill it with dirt, shovel by shovel, thud by thud on the glossy, varnished surface. For Kate, this is the worst part: letting go, finding the will to go home and carry on, leave the person they just buried behind. Move on. To the next man, to the next teacher, the next mentor. The next figure you'll lose, sooner or later.

Because everyone leaves. No one ever stays. But he did.

She doesn't need to look to know who just sat by her side; the way he moves, his scent, everything gives him away. It's just something she's always been able to do — figure out when he's physically close to her, when he's around, just lurking, just waiting to fill every empty space inside her chest. She knows him well, too well for her own good. She knows he stayed. She knows she told him to leave four days ago, but three nights ago he made it into that warehouse and saved her from a death that was beyond certain.

She knows how he sits, more lightly than it's expected of a man; she knows his careful manners, the silence she never thought he was capable of, the seriousness of his conversations in the past two days. He called her every morning and every night, connections that lasted all of one minute — most of which was spent in silence. But she knows, and he does too, that those calls kept her alive. That they kept her from throwing herself into the case, from putting herself in the line of fire yet again.

His hand finds hers on her thigh, the mirror of a night so many moons ago, when a serial killer decided to spare his life and leave him with a guilty conscience. His fingers squeeze hers but their eyes don't cross, they refuse to meet. They're both stuck on the two figures working the grave site, carefully observing as the men plow through dirt and flowers and mementos left at the scene.

The silence is the only thing she can offer him. She's thankful, of course — that he saved her, that he ignored her angry words, that his arms wrapped around her and pulled her into the car and covered her mouth. But most of all, she's thanful that he's there, with her, sitting on a cemetery on a sunny day. So she does the only thing she knows how.

Her hand turns around, her palm turning up and her fingers lacing through his. It's intimate — she knows it. But a wave of fear comes over her and she considers, suddenly, that if she were the one lying six feet under the grass layer, she would have never allowed herself to be loved by this man. And that's the thought she can't bear.

"Thank you." The words come out of her throat slowly, almost childlike. She can see his face turing to her from the corner of her eye, but she keeps looking forward, keeps watching over the grave like a faithful dog at its owner's last address. She tries to convey as much as she possibly can in those two words — all the gratitude, all the companionship and the love, yes, the love she feels for the man who's sitting with her. For the man who didn't give up on her, for the man who saved her life.

He's silent for a while. They don't need words, not usually, but she wishes he would say something. The thought that he might now be feeling the sting of her words from a few days ago hits her hard — she knows how it works, she knows that before this it was all adrenaline, all noblety, all knight in shining armor, saving the fair detective. Now things get real. Now things begin to hurt like they hadn't before.

"I'm sorry." The words leave her mouth before she can realize they do, and that's when her eyes leave the grave, turn to their twined hands. She feels his breath catch in his throat and she's suddenly afraid that she might have said something wrong, gone about this in a completely inappropriate manner.

"Do you know what you're sorry for?" He asks, the fingers holding her more tightly, more fiercely.

Of course she knows what she's sorry for; it doesn't mean that it's easy for her to say.

"For yelling at you." She starts, her tone almost wistful. She sees the soft smile on his face as he looks away and it gives her courage, fills her chest with something other than the fear that's been lying there for days. "For saying that we were over." She smiles and her voice comes out a whisper. "We're not over, Castle."

"No, we're not." He agrees after a moment of silence, a moment so long and excruciating that she thinks she might die from it.

The men finish their work, the green grass covering the recently mangled surface and a white crown — the family flowers — resting peacefully against the wooden cross. That's what's going to be there until the headstone is finished. A wooden cross, like in the old cowboy movies. Roy would have liked the analogy.

One of the men looks up and nods softly, as if to acknowledge their presence before he leaves, and starts walking. They leave, shovels hanging from the green cart as they make small talk, discuss last night's game. And that's when she crumbles.

It's not like she can see it coming. When it hits her, it comes with such a force that it knocks the air out of her lungs, making her inhale hungrily, desperately. Her eyes are on the grave, the closed grave and oh God, he's gone, he's really gone and it's all her fault.

Castle's arms surround her as soon as it starts. He wraps them around her shoulders, his forehead against the side of her head as she sobs. She fights him off for a few moments, the heat of his embrace burning through the fibers of her uniform, all of it fire and ice and pain and sorrow. She fights him off, but he stays. His arms don't move, and a time comes when her head finds its way to his forehead, her cheek against his nose, her mouth so close to him that it's almost sinful.

She doesn't know how long it's been since she started to cry, but the sun is starting to set on the horizon, the pink and purple and yellow shades of May invading her senses and forcing her to calm down, to let her forehead rest against his shoulder, to loosen the grasp on his hand, his poor hand that she nearly mangled. She brings it up to her mouth and kisses it softly, feeling it get wet from the tears and the moisture of her lips.

He's the one who pulls her up from the bench, grabbing her hat from where it was placed, right beside her thigh. His arm leaves her shoulder and she shivers at the loss almost immediately, but she won't cower, she won't say a word. She'll take it like a big girl, because after all that she's said, after all that's been done, after she has asked him to lie for her, she can't ask for anything else.

But she does anyway.

"Have dinner with me?"

The question stuns her more than it does him. How could that escape her mouth, how could she have allowed it?

"I... I know you're probably anxious to go back to Alexis. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." She mumbles and starts walking with him, the path that leads to the entrance of the cemetery, where she left her car. She knows he's on foot — the car service must have taken his mother and daughter home. She knows she'll drive him home and watch while he leaves the car and walks quickly to his building in that half-jumpy step of his. She'll smile at how much she secretly enjoys it.

"I spent the day with Alexis. I want to have dinner with you." He says when he sees her moving away. He sounds like a boy, too scared for his size, too juvenile. Oh goodness. He's afraid she might take it back, that she might want to be alone after all; she can see it all over him, how needy he is for company right now, how he wants to be near her. It's terrifying.

She jumps anyway.

"Okay." She whispers and the start moving towards her car. "My place. We can order in."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em>

_This is where it starts for them — in the Redemption universe. It's where things go differently from the canon story, so it seemed right to post this as the start of the prequels. They won't come as a full, linear story, like the main piece — they'll appear as small episodes, bits and pieces of their brief time together, of Castle's time in California and Beckett's time in New York._

_This one has two parts — I could have posted as a one-shot, but the scenes seemed different in their essence and location, so I opted for doing it separately. The more feedback I get, the faster the second part comes. Yes. This is me blackmailing you._

_I hope you enjoyed this. Montgomery's funeral has been revisited in fiction more times than one can count, but I still think it mattered in this universe, especially since Kate doesn't get shot. Okay. That's all, I think. Thanks for reading!_


	2. Two

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down.

Tonight.

_— Let the Rain, Sara Bareilles_

* * *

><p>Her place is quiet, almost overly so. It's as if the city took a day to mourn its best citizen; there is no sound of ambulances crossing the air, no honking, no air conditioning systems cracking and jamming on the outside of the apartment. The silence is reverent and is enhanced when she flicks the light open, the dim light above her kitchenette illuminating the living area just enough so they can circulate.<p>

She keeps the door open for him, watches him take off his coat and hang it on a rack at the closet. She falls in wonder with the ease with which he moves around her place, with the familiarity of the situation. It's a beacon of light in a dark day and she takes it for what it is. She drops the keys on the bowl near the door and pulls her service piece out of its holster, along with the badge from her hat. She moves to the bedroom and slowly extracts the wooden box with the picture of her parents from its place on the vanity; dropping it on the bedspread, she opens it and carefully places the gun and badge inside. She feels the soft velvet surface beneath her fingers, allowing them to travel a little, soften the tissue with their passage.

He watches from the doorway, his hands on his pockets, his shoulder against the doorjamb. His shirt has the first button open now and his tie seems to have vanished. He looks more like the regular Castle now, not like the man at the funeral. She likes him better this way — that kind of darkness doesn't match his personality. Hers, yes. Not his.

She closes the box and places it back on the vanity. It's only then that she realizes that she's still wearing her uniform, her stuffy and uncomfortable — but oh so comforting — dark blue uniform. He seems to realize it at the same time she does, because he stand up, points to the vanity.

"You probably want to change. I'll... I'll just be over here." He says, his voice cracking a little bit in the middle of the sentence. If she wasn't so close to tears, she'd laugh. He doesn't move, not yet. Not when she's looking at the mirror with that kind of stoic expression, her lip quivering slightly.

She unbuttons her coat slowly, her eyes set on her hands with the mirror in between. The metallic disks come undone one by one and she feels like she's putting on a show for him — one that's either extremely erotic or excruciatingly sad. She doesn't cry, but her fingers do tremble at the last button. She can hear his sharp intake of hair, his hands now limp at his sides, his mouth open. She pulls it off carefully and looks at him.

No words are needed. He nods and closes the door, moving away from it, leaving her alone for a minute.

She moves to the closet, picks out a pair of yoga pants and a loose fitting, dark grey sweater. It's relaxed enough, it covers enough. It's safe enough to be around him. She unties her hair, allows it to fall around her shoulders. Her make up is smudged, but she doesn't really care. This isn't a night for beauty — it's a night for sadness, a night for comfort. Whatever this is, it's not a night for beauty.

He's waiting for her in the living area, a couple of take out menus placed on the wooden counter of her kitchenette. He's looking at them intently, but she knows his mind is somewhere else. Hers is, as well. He stands up with his phone on his hand, a curious look washing over his face.

"Thai? Italian? Japanese?" He inquires and she sits at one of the stools, her chin falling to her closed fist.

"Whatever you want. I'm not very hungry."

"Thai it is." He says softly and calls the number, placing their usual orders, plus a few other dishes she knows he considers comfort food. She appreciates the effort — he's doing his best to be supportive but to keep his distance at the same time. A friend. If only he knew.

"Kate?" He calls and she realizes they have been silent for a long time, both their minds lost in the grief of the day, in the events of the night before.

"Yeah?" It's just a breath, but it makes a sound and it's an encouraging one. His eyes find hers and she can see a spark in them, a glimmer of hope. Like he just found a way to get them out of there, of that dark place.

"Tell me a story."

* * *

><p>A few hours have passed. The thai food arrived and they ate while she did most of the talking, unlike all the other days in their lives. Her voice, soft and slow and tinted with the weight of the day, floated softly through the apartment as she told him about Christmas at the Becketts.<p>

How the myth of Santa Claus had been replaced by Baby Jesus when she was five — and how it scared her instead of making her anxious for the gifts; how the mornings were filled with the smell of coffee (that Johanna and Jim would allow her to have in a small dose, because it was Christmas and she had been such a good girl) and the sound of Benny Goodman playing in the background instead of the traditional holiday music; how her parents would dance across the kitchen, their hands tangled together, their foreheads against each other's, swaying softly and in tempo.

She's told him about the Christmas when she became older, about ice skating at Rockefeller Center and last minute shopping with her mother. She's told him about the carolers outside of their brownstone (had she ever told him that her family actually had money? Not just enough to live, but some well apparent wealth?) and the smell of gingerbread cookies. She'd told him about her grandmother Ruth, who started coming over for Christmas when her grandfather Theodore passed away.

She's also told him about the decorations, about the nights she used to spend lying under the tree, watching the lights blink until she couldn't see straight. How her mother would do it with her, every time she came home late from work and caught her little Katie out of bed.

She has told him every story she remembers, from when she was little and her world was still bright and pink and innocent. And now that they're on her couch, that her knees are touching his and their hands are around glasses of scotch, she realizes she's been smiling more in the past couple of hours than she has all month.

"I see what you did there." She whispers, her voice playfully conspirational.

His chest swells at her words and she can tell that he didn't expect this. Not this tone, not this playfulness. He's clearly happy he's succeeded.

"What is it that I did, Detective?"

"Make me remember good things instead of bad ones." Her fingers draw up the contours of the glass while she looks outside. The air is warming up, the Summer is coming. He's probably going to the Hamptons again, to write. She knows he needs to — his due date must be near.

"I admit to nothing." He replies just as playfully as she speaks. They smile and the silence engulfs them like a blanket, making everything blurry, everything serious again. "Kate."

She looks up at him, her eyes filled with such intensity, with a craving to cross the line that they drew in the sand so long ago. She knows what this is — it's the loneliness and the need for comfort, it's the fear, always the fear, creeping up her back and lodging in the back of her head, making her do things that will hurt her sooner or later.

"None of this is your fault." She sees the resolve in his eyes before he speaks, and now that the words are out she almost regrets letting him into her apartment, under her skin.

"It is." She whispers, the alcohol in her hand suddenly too appealing, too beautiful to be left on that glass. She takes a large gulp, her hand moving to the bottle to help herself to another dose. He stops her, brings her hand down with his, places them both on his knee.

"No, it's not. This, what's happening now? It started when you were nineteen. Everything now — Raglan's death, Lockwood, Montgomery — these are all consequences from what they did back then." He explains slowly but passionately. As if she is really dumb, but he really really likes her.

"It feels like it's my fault." She whispers and her eyes get lost in the lights outside, the crispness of the night air in May, that makes the wind moan softly against her window panes. He's standing still, looking at their clasped hands. He seems to be at a loss for words.

"For whatever's worth, I'm telling you it's not. When you have nothing else to hold on to, think of this, okay?" He sounds broken, just as broken as she is. Oh no. He can't be like that. She needs to make him whole again, needs to make him be the man she knows he is.

"Alexis must be waiting for you." Her hand tightens around his, a soft smile gracing her features. It's a false one, but that's the best she can give him.

"Yes. I should go." He sighs. "But I hate the thought of leaving you alone."

She drops his hand after a squeeze. "I'll be fine, go."

He stands up from the couch and prepares to move away, but a question stops him.

"Would you like me to call Josh?"

Oh. She seems to have forgotten to tell him about the good doctor. About the fact that he didn't even call the night Montgomery died. About the fact that he knocked on her door for hours before she decided to open it, two nights ago. She hasn't told him that he tried to excuse himself for not calling, for not worrying. She hasn't told Castle that she had all his things packed already — that all she had to do was shove the box in his arms and tell him 'It's over'. She hasn't told Castle about the angry tears that invaded her afterwards — not because she was heartbroken, but because she'd lost such precious, precious time with that man.

"There is no Josh anymore." She whispers and watches as he tries to contain the smile that threatens to take over his face. He's kind of adorable.

"Are — are you okay?"

She nods. "Yes, I think I am."

He sighs, moving to the door and getting his coat. She follows him and finds it strangely arousing when he picks his tie up from the rack and throws it over his shoulder. He looks like he's about to whistle and she finds it both endearing and wildly inappropriate.

"I'm picking you up tomorrow. Nine. Be ready." He tells her and opens the door, smiling softly. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

She shrugs, leaning against the doorframe as he makes it through the hallway to the elevator. "I'll be okay." She whispers as he enters the elevator. As soon as the doors close, she allows herself to fall against the door. "Eventually."

* * *

><p><em>Author's note:<em>

_ Thank you so much for your lovely feedback on this story. I hope you enjoyed these small episodes. Be sure to let me know what you think, and I'll see you the next time inspiration strikes! _


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